Web Hosting Advice For Newbies

If you are a newcomer to the world of website hosting then you are probably scared by the wealth of information on the Internet about getting your site up and running. Unfortunately when it comes to building and running websites sometimes experience is the only way you are going to learn – unless, of course, you take classes at your local technical school or know someone who can teach you.

The biggest problem newcomers face when it comes to web hosting is choosing the right web hosting service for your website. You will probably find that the advice on the Internet about this subject is all the same and they all tell you to choose the hosting plan that will work the best for you. In order to do that you need to really sit down and analyze what your website is all about and what type of content you are planning on putting into it. If your website is going to have a lot of pictures on it, you may want to consider a web hosting plan that is designed to accommodate them without slowing down the resources. It is well worth your time to list everything you want to do with your website in order to get the right options and services with your web hosting package.

Most web hosting companies today – including ones that are ‘green’ – offer their customers unlimited bandwidth and disk space in their web hosting packages. This helps make the choice marginally easier when you are considering the many different options available. You would think that a package offering unlimited bandwidth and storage would cost an arm and leg every month, but actually they don’t. This is one less thing a newbie to the web hosting world can stop worrying about. If they use a company offering unlimited bandwidth and space, they will be able to handle as much traffic as they want.

Transfer speed is something else a newbie to the web hosting world will need to take into consideration. Because a single server can be the home to thousands of websites at one time, the transfer speed could be lower than what you hope for when it comes to the loading of you website. Of course, you could pay for a dedicated server but that costs a considerable amount of money. One option that is open to you is using a virtual private server. A VPS offers the user the same benefits as a dedicated server but without the cost involved. VPS dedicated servers can accommodate thousands of websites but because of the way they are set up the resources are allocated to each site without having to ‘borrow’ from another one.

Finally, you need to make sure that the web hosting package you choose can accommodate any special software you want to use. MySQL and PHP are not supported by every company. You need to make sure that the host can support these programs, even if it means e-mailing them before purchasing a web hosting agreement.